Promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom had no points with convincing his star boxer, former two-time heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua, to struggle MMA veteran Francis Ngannou.
Joshua was initially being positioned to face former WBC champ Deontay Wilder in a long-awaited struggle.
That state of affairs was derailed when Joseph Parker received an upset twelve spherical unanimous resolution over Wilder on December 23 in Saudi Arabia. Joshua appeared in the primary occasion of that card and stopped Otto Wallin.
“Look, we had been resulting from announce the Deontay Wilder struggle within the ring that night time,” Hearn informed The MMA Hour. “Each guys had signed a contract to announce the struggle and [Turki Alalshikh] was very excited. Clearly it was one of the crucial extremely anticipated fights that could possibly be made this fall. It’s 4 years within the making, everybody was actually excited. Clearly Deontay Wilder misplaced. So from that second, the cogs are delivering [Alalshikh’s] thoughts, ‘What are we going to do on March eighth, March ninth?’
“As quickly because the fights end, he’s like, ‘Proper, let’s discuss.’ And we had a gathering and I stated to him, ‘I feel [Francis Ngannou] is the most important struggle on the market.’ I stated it to you after I got here on [The MMA Hour after Fury vs. Ngannou] — we’re speaking about two giants in Anthony Joshua and Francis Ngannou, two males who appear to be they’re carved out of stone, two devastating punchers. And I’ve at all times felt prefer it was the most important struggle on the market. I informed [Alalshikh] that and he felt the identical, and these individuals transfer in a short time.”
Joshua vs. Ngannou is scheduled to happen on March 8 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Hearn is anticipating a really dominant victory by his man.
“Actually, earlier to the Fury struggle, it wasn’t a struggle that [Joshua] was inquisitive about,” Hearn stated. “Clearly we simply boxed a man in Otto Wallin that basically gave Fury a extremely robust time, lower him, suppose he had 48 stitches — the struggle ought to’ve been stopped, Otto Wallin ought to’ve received that struggle. However it’s what it’s, and AJ went out and it was a mismatch. He demolished [Wallin]. And I imagine we’re going to do the identical right here. In order that efficiency over Tyson Fury, in fact, that was actually the purpose, the second that made this struggle credible.”
